Ebook: Do what thou wilt: a life of Aleister Crowley

An exploration into the life and works of a modern mystic, occultist, poet, mountaineer, and bisexual adventurer known to his contemporaries as "The Great Beast" Aleister Crowley was a groundbreaking poet and an iconoclastic visionary whose literary and cultural legacy extends far beyond the limits of his notoriety as a practitioner of the occult arts. Born in 1875 to devout Christian parents, young Aleister's devotion scarcely outlived his father, who died when the boy was twelve. He reached maturity in the boarding schools and brothels of Victorian England, trained to become a world-class mountain climber, and seldom persisted with any endeavor in which he could be bested. Like many self-styled illuminati of his class and generation, the hedonistic Crowley gravitated toward the occult. An aspiring poet and a pampered wastrel-obsessed with reconciling his quest for spiritual perfection and his inclination do exactly as he liked in the earthly realm-Crowley developed his own school of mysticism. Magick, as he called it, summoned its users to embrace the imagination and to glorify the will. Crowley often explored his spiritual yearnings through drug-saturated vision quests and rampant sexual adventurism, but at other times he embraced Eastern philosophies and sought enlightenment on ascetic sojourns into the wilderness. This controversial individual, a frightening mixture of egomania and self-loathing, has inspired passionate-but seldom fair-assessments from historians. Lawrence Sutin, by treating Crowley as a cultural phenomenon, and not simply a sorcerer or a charlatan, convinces skeptic readers that the self-styled "Beast" remains a fascinating study in how one man devoted his life to the subversion of the dominant moral and religious values of his time.;An overview of the magical tradition, in which it is suggested that the raging battle between Jesus and Satan be (for the moment) set aside in order that the true nature of the Magus be understood -- The strange transformation of one Edward Alexander ("Alick") Crowley, a pious Christian boy of the late Victorian upper class, into Aleister Crowley, Poet, Gent., and Magical Adept in Waiting (1875-98) -- In which Aleister Crowley takes the magical name Perdurabo ("I shall endure to the end") but appears to lose his way amidst the schisms of the Golden Dawn and the temptations of the Vale of Tears (1898-1900) -- Years of wandering in which Crowley pursues the heights of magic and mountains, embraces Buddhism, then abandons all for the love of a woman and the life of country laird (1900-04) -- The birth of the New Aeon (1904-05) -- The assault on Kanchenjunga, the establishment of a new magical order, and the wanderlusts of a magus (1905-08) -- The creation of the Equinox, the rites of Eleusis, and a confrontation in the Sahara with the god of Chaos (1909-14) -- In exile in America, Crowley endures poverty and accusations of treason as ordeals necessary to becoming a magus (1914-19) -- The founding and the ruin of the Abbey of Thelema (1920-23) -- Years of exile and wandering--and the publication of a masterwork (1923-30) -- A staged suicide, an unavenged libel, and the Equinox of the Gods (1930-36) -- The final years of a magus in the guise of a disreputable old man (1937-47) -- An assortment of posthumous assessments and developments.